28 February 2013

Brown Boobies the Farasan Banks – Bird records by Claudia Buholzer Nassier

I received a message from Claudia Buholzer Nassier who is living in Jeddah and has just come back from a dive trip to the Farasan Banks on a boat. She mentioned that one afternoon she visited a little uninhabited island on the Farasan Banks and discovered a kind of a shelter with lovely birds. These birds turned out to be breeding Brown Boobies that breed on islands in the Red Sea but not elsewhere in Saudi Arabia. Claudia managed to take some great photos of the birds that were breeding and very kindly allowed me to use them on my website. All photographs remain copyright of Claudia Buholzer Nassier. Brown Booby has an extended breeding season with a winter breeding schedule and a summer one so birds are on eggs or with young for much of the year. I have not seen Brown Booby in Saudi Arabia yet as I live on the other coast to where these pictures were taken.